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Question about the whole .com thing...

  1. christinekirchoff
    Member

    Please be gentle, I am computer challenged. That said, I'm interested in creating the whole .com thing for my blog. So I can get rid of the wordpress.com/. I read it's 17 bucks a year, true? And if you decide not to pay for a particular year do they erase/deactivate your account or do they just return it to wordpress.com/ I've heard some stories but they may be just that - fictional tales.

    All information would be greatly appreciated.

    The blog I need help with is authorchristinekirchoff.wordpress.com.

  2. christinekirchoff
    Member

    The account I'm looking to upgrade is this one...

    http://authorchristinekirchoff.wordpress.com/

  3. auxclass
    Member

    To the best of my knowledge it just goes back to your-old-site.wordpress.com. Makes no sense to do anything else.

    I have seen several cases where the domain name was not renewed and it was back to their-old-site.wordpress.com while they figured out how to get their old name back and do the domain mapping thing again. The search engines will have gotten used to your-site.com so your traffic will fall for a while.

  4. christinekirchoff
    Member

    Thanks for the info Auxclass.

    Does anyone know where I can find more information on the upgrade? I clicked the upgrade button on my site but there's not much information there.

    Oh, and do they place ads on your site if you upgrade?

  5. raincoaster
    Member

    They already have ads on your site. Buying any upgrade other than the Ad Free upgrade leaves ads on your site. Any upgrade at Wp.com applies ONLY specifically to exactly what it says and nothing else.

    If you don't renew, you lose control of the domain and could lose it forever. It happened to me once and it's not good. It reverts your site to whatever.wordpress.com and all the links to whatever.com no longer point to your blog.

  6. christinekirchoff
    Member

    @Raincoster...you lose the domain forever? As in you can't use say Blah.com anymore?

  7. auxclass
    Member

    Yes you can't use blah.com - someone else gets it if you forget to renew the registration.

    I got my main domain name because someone registered it and never used it and I guess forgot about it, the registration lapsed and I was able to register the name.

    The lost domain name happens fairly regularly, sites that have a lot of traffic are the ones that are the most desirable by squatters, they then sell it back to you for a lot of money or just put a porn site on your old church site and collect the traffic for a while,

  8. thesacredpath
    Member

    If the domain name is hosted here, and it goes past the grace period when the registrar wordpress uses has set, then the domain name becomes very expensive to renew (in the range of $90 for a year). If it goes past the grace period and the registrar releases it, then the domain name again becomes available to anyone and you could very well lose it to someone else.

    Once you build up a year's worth of search engine ranking on a new domain name, if you let it go, your search engine ranking drops back to absolute zero and you have to start all over again building it up. If 3 months down the road you get another domain name and map it, then you start again from zero with that new domain name (although any search engine ranking you had built up in the meantime will eventually transfer over.

    Bottom line: If you decide to get a domain name for your blog, keep it and keep it renewed or it will end up losing you your readership.

  9. tandava108
    Member

    I should point out that some domain issuing companies have an auto-renew option, where you can set it so that they renew automatically and charge your credit card. Sorry I don't know if wordpress does that, I have all my domains hosted at a different company.

  10. thesacredpath
    Member

    .COM will notify you with a notice in the dashboard when the domain and domain mapping is coming due.

  11. christinekirchoff
    Member

    Thanks for all the info!

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